CD Interest Income: I only have one CD account left in the amount of $185,000 paying 3%. It expires at the end of 2018 and I’ll have to figure out what to do with it. After selling my SF rental house in mid-2017 for 30X annual rent, I’m left with about $500,000 in cash after investing ~$2,200,000. The best CD today is the CIT Bank 12-month CD at 2.5%. That’s pretty darn good because just a couple years ago, such a CD was less than 0.5%. The yield curve is flattening, meaning folks should take advantage of shorter duration CDs.

Taking Paid Surveys at Home: I was skeptical, at first, until my 17 year old son starting making money at home taking paid surveys. Companies desperately want your opinion, and they are willing to pay for it. The trick, of course, is knowing where to find the paid surveys that pay the best. One of the most popular and legitimate survey sites is Swagbucks. Not only can you make money taking surveys, but you can also make money by watching videos and even surfing the net. They also offer significant cash back for online shopping.

I run several online businesses now (all it takes to start one is a domain, hosting, and maybe incorporation). There are two notable ones. The first is meal plan membership site called $5 Meal Plan that I co-founded with Erin Chase of $5 Dinners. The second is the umbrella of blogs I run, including this one and Scotch Addict. They pay me ordinary income as well as qualified distributions since I'm a partner.
Purchasing a rental property is another common way that individual generate an income stream. It is very similar to investing, in that you take a sum of money to purchase the property, and the property returns a cash flow – rent. You do have expenses related to this that are different from investing, such as a mortgage, utilities, property taxes, etc, which all must be taken into consideration when calculating a return on rental property.
I’m looking at accepting a professor job. It’ll be more than a 50% pay cut. But I’ll have the same life you describe – endless summers and an entire month every winter to ski. I’m thinking in the end, eventually, I might even end up wealthier in more ways than one. Happy people tend to be the most successful. I have no desire to diversify. Dividend stocks allude me. CDs seem like a good choice for older people, but I have time on my hands and real estate knowledge, so I’m sticking with what I know, despite the fact that most people will tell me it is foolish and I should diversify.
Within six months of selling, however, I had reinvested the proceeds from the home sale and brought total passive income for 2018 back up to an estimated $203,724. I'm not sure I would have sold the house without a clear plan for reinvesting the proceeds, since I'm bullish on the SF housing market long term. However, because I did have a plan, and the challenges of raising a newborn and dealing with rowdy tenants left me feeling a bit stretched, I decided to simplify and sell.
Most credit card companies offer sign-up bonuses to entice you to open a credit account with them. As long as you don’t spend money just to hit the minimum balance and always pay your balance on time, this can have a minimal impact on your credit score while earning you hundreds – or even thousands – of dollars a year. Some of the best travel credit cards offer 100,000 points to new accounts when you meet reasonable spending requirements.
Freelancing is short term project you need to take from someone and complete it in pre-decided time. Once a project is completed you will be paid and there is no further term with the company. There are many websites where people post projects. Many people are working as freelancer full time. Websites like WorknHire or Freelancer are great places to start.
OK, I know what you're thinking — maybe you're not a writer. However, as Tamez says above, chances are, you're an expert sy ~something~. Also, chances are that other people want to know what you know. So whether you write an eBook on dating or tips on how to fix your car, once you write, self-publish the book, and let it go, it can sit on a site like Amazon and sell itself. Of course, you can market it, too, but that's another story! Some sites let you keep most of the earnings, while others do not.
Most of us think of investment income as just the cash flow we get from bank interest, bonds, share dividends and property rents, some of which comes via a super pension. But a more complete view is to also consider how growing the value of your investments can add to your spending potential. This total return approach generates income from both income and growth to optimise spending from your portfolio across all market cycles, aligning cheap and expensive investments to your goals.